Layla Unplugged And Its Relation To WoodDorking

[Tom Watson]

So, my buddy asked me to burn him a CD and specifically asked that both versions of Layla be on it.

I had not listened to them back to back in a long time.

Being a WoodDorker, I became enamored of the differences between the two.

You have the Normish Layla, which depends on huge amounts of 'Lecktricity and brute force - and then you have the Galootish Layla, which depends on subtlety and expression.

As a concept, it was working for me pretty good.

So, I'm thinking to myself - Normites are more like Rock and Roll and Galoots are more like Folk Music.

Nah, that couldn't be right.

I couldn't imagine Patrick Leach singing Kum-Ba-Ya anymore than I could imagine Norm singing almost anything from Cream (maybe the Grateful Dead - workingman's dead album).

So, where does that leave me?

I have come to believe, through the salvific power of music, that Galoots and Normites are the same people, as Clapton is the same person when he sings either the Electric Layla or the Unplugged Layla.

It is worthy of note that Clapton took a good long time to become unplugged, as do many confirmed Normites, as they age.

But, they are the same being.

So, we not be not either Normites or Galoots, as Clapton does not need be either a Rock and Roller or a Folky - we may enjoy the multiplicity of our expressions of WoodDorking, without fearing that we need to fall in one or another of the major camps.

If Clapton can handle it, so can we.

Damn, I'm glad that we finally settled that.

Tom Watson - WoodDorker tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (email)

(website)

[tom]

It can't be right. I wonder if Igor Stravinsky could fit into this concept... Tom

[Tom Watson]

Leopold Stokowski is prolly the only dude that could make him speaka da same english.

Dude had the Philly Band when it was full of wild people, all wanting to be first chair bubba and he had the character and musical sense to create the greatest band that any of god's children have ever heard.

If'n you ain't heard Big B's Fifth done by the Philly band under Leopold, you ain't really ever heard it.

Stravinski reminds me of what Hemingway said about ee cummings:

"That ain't poetry, that's typing."

Tom Watson - WoodDorker tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (email)

(website)

[tom]

De gustibus non disputandum, eh, Watson? Tom

[Tom Watson]

The actual reference is from Cicero:

"De gustibus non disputandum est"

Which translates directly to the unfortunate:

"Of taste no dispute is."

But which most acknowledge as:

"There is no accounting for taste."

(watson - who is now listening to Satchmo's, "Mack The Knife")

Watch out for the "est", it's verbal.

Tom Watson - WoodDorker tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (email)

(website)

[tom]

Now listening to the band called Henry Cow, their "Legend" album. Check it out, then maybe Stravinsky won't seem so much like "typing". It's all relatively good. Tom, the Cultural Imperialist .

[mjwallace]

"That ain't poetry, that's typing"

I think that's what Capote said about James Baldwin

Wallace

[Tom Watson]

This Capote that you speak about, was he a writer?

(watson - who hopes that irony is not entirely dead)

Tom Watson - WoodDorker tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (email)

(website)

[hylourgos]

I don't think Cicero said this: do you have a loc? It may well be classical, but I've wondered if this weren't some later invention, so I should track it down--I'll start with you and Cicero.

The literal translation is more like: "About tastes it must not be argued", but since English is uncomfortable with impersonal constructions, the old standbys "You can't argue about tastes" or "There's no accounting for taste" are close enough.

"est" doesn't stand alone as the verb here either: it's part of the (future passive) periphrastic "[disptuta]ndum est" construction which denotes obligation or necessity. It (the "est") could also be gapped, so what tom wrote would work fine too.

Don't mean to be picky, but hey, what else is a philologist good for?

H ...teaching Carroll's Laughin and Grief since '85

[mjwallace]

Woops! I just did the "google" thing and found out, that yes Capote did say that, but it was about Jack Kerouac.

MJ Wallace

[KaiS.]

[Robatoy]

Was....

Killamangiro [sic] by Babyshambles. (What does Kate see in him?)

Now listening to:

Bei Mir Bist Du Schön by the Flying Neutrinos

fade to

Van Morrison singing Comfortably Numb (live The Wall, Berlin).. if you haven't heard it...find it. Just f*ucking awesome... Danko & Levon doing back-up vocals, can you diggit?

[Tom Watson]

My vaguest apologies but the Latin that I was taught was not admiring of the included verb.

As the reference was to Cicero, I would think that his full expression would be worthy of the quote.

As an oldish Philosophy Major, I would argue that a sentence without an expressed verb is a nasty piece of work, particularly since I spent much of my undergraduate time arguing the merits and definition of "est".

Even without reference to Summa Theologica, or, indeed, Philosophica, the importance of "est" is enshrined in both Latin Grammar and Latin Literature, of which I am sure you are more than passing familiar.

I would also argue your parsing of the phrase into English, as mine admired the natural translation of the elements and yours transcribed rather than translated.

Then too, there is the matter that the Latin is a derivative of the Greek, which I am sure you know, as it would be a commonplace of your professional life.

But, who then is the attribution?

Who then was Cicero fond of quoting?

(watson - who has had more than enough Grief to last a lifetime)

(sorry, just having a bit of fun before going to sleep)

Tom Watson - WoodDorker tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (email)

(website)

[tom]

Rogatoy wrote:snip

[charlie b]

The plugged in version is full of the amplified passion and pain of a young inexperienced man. The unplugged version is the expression of an older, more experienced man, the rough edges ground down a bit by life.

But some of Clapton's songs can only be "plugged in" - the gutiar riff at the end of Holy Mother just wouldn't/ couldn't convey the anguish and pain, or the plea for relief. If I Saw You In Heaven has to be acoustic. After Midnite unplugged would be sleep inducing.

The newbie knows only of tailed tools and the dust collector and ear plugs that go with them. The intermediate becomes awayre of hand tools and the mystique that is attributed to their use. The experienced wood basher knows enough about enough to know which to use when. The fanatic uses one or the other and misses the benefits of each.

Only Clapton and Leon Russel can get an instrument to drawl (sp?).

charlie b

as for acoustic versions of earlier works being lame

- a jazz pianist named Buddy Satan had just started a fifteen minute break when a drunk yelled "Hey Buddy. I don't hear nothing!" Buddy's over the shoulder reply "You're not listening."

[hylourgos]

Hey Tom,

Had to read your post a couple of times before I realized how my query about the quote's source was misunderstood. What I meant, and could have been clearer about, was that I don't think Cicero says this at all in any of his works, whether invented by him or quoted by him from some earlier writer. That's why I wondered if you happened to have a location (citation) for that quote in Cicero. That would clear it up for me.

About gapping verbs: classical Latin is more comfortable dropping any form of the verb "to be" than we, but we can still do it as I just did; nevertheless, I can understand a philosopher's reticence to allow it. In general, though, English too gaps verbs all over the place, as do you:

*The very first sentence of your post to which I respond now, "My vaguest apologies but..." Two modifiers and a noun [no verb] followed by a coordinating conjunction with a new independent clause. *Earlier in this thread: "...as do many confirmed Normites, as they age." ["become unplugged," from the prior clause] *From "Old John" thread: "OldJohn." "The laugh of a truly happy man." "yet so full of good feeling." ["he seemed" gapped from prior clause], "And so we did," ["walk", gapped from prior sentence]

"I would also argue your parsing of the phrase into English, as mine admired the natural translation of the elements and yours transcribed rather than translated. "

A "natural translation of the elements"? Admirably slippery, and not quite the same as "translates directly". Regardless, you're shooting your own argument in the foot, to mix metaphors: you first restore the "est" then circumcise the periphrastic form "disputandum est", making the future participial half into a noun then exile the "est". Ends up not meaning (whether parsed, translated or transcribed) the same thing--or more realistically, not meaning as close to the original as other [parsings, translations, transcriptions] ready at hand.

"Then too, there is the matter that the Latin is a derivative of the Greek,...."

Well, only in the broadest of senses. Hellenists might chuckle, but Romanists would rankle. It would be no different to assert that English is derivative of French.

To, or not to, that the question, H who may have already fallen asleep.

ps: did you write on "esse" in the Summa as an undergratuate? di tibi propter nimis laborem parcant!

[tom]

Dang! And I was just gonna say he had a pretty mouth! Tom

[hylourgos]

Yes, "Pulchramos", that's what we'll call him from now on...and pulcherrimos when he writes something *really* pretty.

H. ...foolishly proud of his Neolatinogisms, given how late it is.

[hylourgos]

Yes, "Pulchramos", that's what we'll call him from now on...and pulcherrimos when he writes something *really* pretty.

H. ...foolishly proud of his Neolatinogisms, given how late it is.

[Luigi Zanasi]

On Fri, 02 Dec 2005 00:23:02 -0500, Tom Watson scribbled:

Saying that Latin is a derivative of Greek is like saying that English is a derivative Italian. (I was going to say French, but English is a derivative of French, at least a large part of its vocabulary).

Ludovicus Johannax